Art Momper, Founder and President

I grew up on a patriotic household. My father, Jim, was a radio operator and navigator in B-24’s flying out of Italy during WWII. Surviving the double jeopardy of being shot down on his last scheduled mission, and capture by the Russians, Jim demonstrated devotion to the country typical of young men of his generation. He shared his love of history, the country and military with me, and I became a serious fan of history from my early childhood. I am not a veteran myself. In the late 60’s, I was in a nationwide draft lottery for the Vietnam War and drew a high number, and therefore was not drafted. I was honored to be able to represent America as a member of a men’s chorus that was chosen to sing patriotic songs at the 75^th Anniversary of D-Day (2019). We performed at ceremonies at the cemeteries at Omaha Beach and Brittany, and the town of St. Mere Eglise.

I learned that war brings out the entire range of human emotions, and changes people. The US trains volunteer soldiers to be able to fight, kill, and endure hardships most of us never imagine. When they return home, we ask them to turn off this part of their life but it is not something that can be shut off easily. There are very few programs to help the transition. When our vets return physically injured or with TBI or PTS, they often find themselves isolated. Their post-military life may include lasting pain, difficulty integrating, financial stress and family estrangement.

I was fortunate to have a successful 40+ year in real estate and have started or ran several companies. Throughout this period, I was very active in a range of activities such as skydiving, scuba, becoming a pilot, hunting, fishing, and so on. These experiences gave me an appreciation of the outdoors, as well as some appreciation of what many of our military experience. I know that when you made the outdoor lifestyle a big part of your life, it would really hurt to lose it because of service-related injury. I decided to find a way to help injured veterans regain access to the outdoors and break their cycles of isolation and depression.

After a few years of helping veterans with rides to medical treatments, and other assistance, I began working with another local non-profit that takes injured vets outdoors. As my experience grew, so did my desire to expand this opportunity to more veterans. I started Vets Outdoors in 2019 with the goal of making it a veteran run organization within a few years. I am recruiting injured veterans with outdoor experience to be program and team leads. This gives them a mission and they love to help other veterans that have been through hardship. It gives our participants comfort knowing that we have people that understand what they have been through. At this point, we have access to more than a hundred thousand acres of private property for hunting and fishing and our goal is to host more than 400 hundred injured men and women a year. We welcome volunteers and financial support, as we rely on donations from people and corporations.

Fishing Program Lead

Felix Ramirez, Retired Army

I was born and raised in Ft Lupton, Colorado and spent most of my childhood fishing on pretty much every lake in Colorado. I  enlisted in the Army in 2006 and my MOS was a 94D, an Air Traffic Control Equipment Repairer. I served in Iraq from 2007-2008 and Afghanistan from 2010-2011. After spending 2 years in South Korea, which is where I met my wife, I was stationed back at Ft Carson, where I was medically retired in 2015 due to the injuries I sustained during my deployments.  I married my wife, Renee, in 2014 who is also a disabled veteran, and we have a beautiful 6-year-old daughter, Hailey. I also have 2 other children from my previous marriage, who live with in Arkansas with their mother.

After getting out of the military, we left Colorado and moved to the south and spent a few years moving all around. Before enlisting in the Army, I always had a love for music and while in South Korea, I was our DJ at the base night club and did the music for several military functions.  I decided to go back to college and graduated with my Bachelor’s Degree in Music Production from Full Sail University and continued with my love of music and being a DJ. When we were living in Mississippi and Arkansas, we spent a lot of time outdoors which is my therapy for my PTSD. We fell in love again with hunting, fishing and boating and my wife, daughter and I spent a lot of time on the lakes in our boat fishing and hanging out with other veterans.

I enjoy spending time with other veterans and their families and rekindling that camaraderie that we had while on active duty.  We love being outdoors and spending time as a family. Since moving back to Peyton Colorado, I spent the wintertime ice fishing and the summertime being out on the lakes. We live on a small ranch with animals and our house is always open for veterans if they need someone to talk to or just someone to hang out with. If we aren’t home, you can find us out on the lake.